


Escapology

by neb



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neb/pseuds/neb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fed-up with his life, 16 year old Tim Drake decides to start anew. He has a plan, but hasn’t learned that not everything in life goes according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s moments before you leave a place that really grinds you down.

The touch of a familiar book that you’ll probably never read again, but are comforted in the knowledge that it’s there. Knowing exactly how many steps it is to the fridge, and being able to navigate in the dark. Waking up to the same alarm clock that gets more battered every morning when it jolts you from dreamland.

I decided to leave months ago. 

It was all planned in my head, every single detail. The bus I would be taking from my house, the façade under I would start my journey. How my parents wouldn’t think anything of my leaving for school; it’s the same bus route I’ve taken every day for the past five years without complaint. The same squeaking lull of the ancient swinging school bus door, the submarine yellow paint, and the clack of the tyres bumping over each road marker, all the bodies on the bus jumping with it.

The next stage would rely on my innate talent to not be seen. I can slip amongst the metallic monsters at the bus station and find a seat without anyone believing I wasn’t supposed to be there. My parents don’t check in, and I rarely use my cell, but I disable the GPS regardless. Another four hours of purring engines, regular gas station stops and women complaining loudly about their fellow passengers.

The final piece of the puzzle I have carefully crafted falls into place when I get to the airport. A change of clothes gives me a more adult aura, no one thinks twice about a guy in a suit, even if he is only five feet tall, and I buy a ticket with my carefully cobbled coins. One way. The passport I produce is a carefully constructed fake but the airhostess is too busy inspecting her nails and pressing bubble gum pink lips together to care that I don’t look 25, and that I’ve only got a small, childish rucksack with me.

A careful plan. Every problem, every identification, every part that could possibly go wrong I’ve postulated a hundred different ways. I’ve accounted for every potential disaster and miscommunication, I’ve even covered my tracks in the acquisition of a fake passport, and the European laws about prosecuting minors (I have my real one, attesting to my age, sewn into the lining of my rucksack. Just in case).

Yet it doesn’t quite seem real yet.

My parents flit between work and home as they always have whilst I try to etch my home for the last sixteen years into my head, saving the picture as it was. The sterile white and red tiled kitchen, never utensil out of place. The living room sofas which were prohibited for the use of children, steel grey with plastic dust covers over them; the oak coffee table with the one telling coffee mug mark, the rest of it meticulously wiped clean.

There’s a bittersweet feeling to it all that belies my true sentiment towards my parents. But I can’t begrudge the house, or the neighbourhood. Or the memories from when I was very small; the colourful circuses, the camera, my eyes constantly cast to the shadows that swept across the night sky. 

I bury my box of photographs in the garden, a symbolic mourning of my old life. I only keep two. One, faded and tattered, where I am sat upon Dick Grayson’s knee, ignoring the burning shame that my parents sweet talked money out of Bruce Wayne and instead relishing in the joy of my idol. The other, a different memento. Taken from the building I nearly plummeted off of, if it wasn’t for a smoking, sparsely clad individual with a harsh laugh, sharp dark eyes, and pixie boots.

Exactly three minutes before the bus pulls up outside, I rest my head against my white front door, the numbers ‘24’ printed on the outside in delicate italics. It feels cool against my forehead. I feel the brass of the hinges and the knocker, callous on my fingertips and the silver post-box, smooth and shiny enough to see your reflection in.

I turn, and don’t look back.

When I’m seated on the plane, I become acutely aware of the noise. The whirr of the engines, the saccharine announcements of the hostesses, and the fastening of belt buckles. I’ve never liked such cacophonies, and I’m not going to start now, regardless of the liberation leaving American soil might bring. 

“This your first flight, kid?" 

It jumps me out of my reverie. I recognise the voice. Tar tarnished, hoarse and with the same dark tone.

“I don’t like your implication. “ I say instead of ‘yes, and I’m pretty freaked out.’ I love and loathe my brain’s substitution of words for my actual feelings. The voice chuckles. “Don’t worry, I call everyone kid. Take offs worst. Then it’s smooth sailing. “

I slide further down my seat and attempt to ignore the person of whom I have a photograph in my bag. It’s unmistakable. The same eyes. The same auburn tinged hair, lacking its usual dye, the same yellow nails.

“M’Jason. “ He states, as the plane roles onto the runway, and starts to move, fast. 

“Remember to breath, kid.” Pressure builds up faster and faster until I feel like I have been dunked underwater and there’s screaming silence whining high pitched in my head, the constant rumble of the craft makes me want to be sick or yell for quiet, it build to a crescendo until panic, anxiety and G-force crush against my chest and then-

We’re in the air.


	2. The Predicament

Escape has never felt so utterly paralysing.

We have been in the air a good ten minutes, and Jason Todd, former Robin, is slumbering mock-peacefully in the chair next to me. After snapping my insistence that I was fine multiple times in his direction he abandoned the attempted conversation and settled into the long haul flight. I watched as the ground rushed away over the rumbling mountain of his chest, as the lights sunk into inky sky and the ebony emptiness of space above the clouds rendered looking out of the window obsolete.

Yet still, my fingers remain etching marks into the steel handles of the chair. I am flying thousands of feet up in an aluminium cylinder and am able to feel ever air pocket and wind current beneath my feet.

I try counting to ten. Then twenty. Then recite my times tables, regressing to a time I remember to be simpler instead of succumbing to the utter terror I feel. I concentrate on Jason. Measure his breath rate in my head. Estimate his pulse from it. Observe the deep red rucksack haphazardly shoved beneath the seat and the leather jacket tucked beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. I let my eyes wander over the scarred skin of his neck until I realise that piercing blue eyes are watching me.

"Kid, first. The watching thing’s creepy. Second, I gotta-" he mutters, shifting and unbuckling his belt-

“Don’t!” Suddenly tears itself past my lips as panic overtakes common sense.

“Don’t what.” He says flatly.

"Don’t unbuckle it!" A frown, he sighs.

"Jesus, What the—" he tugs at the white cowlick hanging in front of his face." The hell do you think is going to happen?

"You just— I-"

"The captain already turned the sign off"

"But—-"

He huffs a breath and rolls his eyes, still half out of his seat, his buckle hanging uselessly from the seatbelt. “Shit. Listen here. Nothing’s gonna happen. ” Says who?! “You’re on a freaking jumbo jet. It takes hours to get to France and you’re gonna want to get up. So chill the fuck out and take a goddamn breath. You’re going purple.” Tin can. Aluminium. 35000 ft high. Over an ocean.”

"…"

His expression hardens “Kid, I gotta piss. Move.”

"It’s Tim." Goddamn it all to hell. "I mean -"

"Yeah. Hi. Now move." I scrabble with the buckle, my hands shaking beyond my control, the choking panic itching at the back of my throat. I stumble into the aisle and he moves swiftly past. I stand awkwardly in the aisle way whilst a woman with a tray full of drinks bustles up the gangway. I’m not sure how long I stand there, watching as she serves each customer individually until her trolly bumps into my right sneaker. 

"I’m sorry sir, could you please -" I don’t hear the rest. I’m not listening. The plane suddenly jerks violently to the right, causing me to fall back into my seat. She moves past.

I sit, half sprawled across all three seats, until a bulky figure stands over, and I force my uncoordinated limbs up. “Jesus, Tim?” I nod mutely and let him back in. He slides into his seat with a grunt. I sit down numbly, and he shoves a can into my hand. “Here.” It’s cold. Beer. I nearly comment that I’m underage but thankfully my petrified brain keeps my mouth shut. I crack open the can and it gives with a sharp hiss. I gulp the bitter, gold liquid down in one mouthful-

"Holy hell slow d-"

My first beer at the hand of Jason Todd. That’s got to be ironic.

It burns the back of my throat, and the nauseating feeling of bubbles and acid swirling in my stomach is sufficiently distracting that in those moments I completely forget about my predicament. I forget about the running away, the fake documents in my bag, the stolen money from my mother’s credit card. I lose sight of the potential felonies. Of how I’ve made it worse by going across international borders. Of the fear scrabbling at the sides of my throat begging to get out.

My reverie is burst by Jason tutting quietly, before his leather clad shoulders roll in a shrug and he chugs down his beer gracelessly, a foam moustache quickly manifesting on the top of his lip. I find myself staring , unable to decide if I am impressed or repulsed.

“What?” He burbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.”If I’m gonna be dealing with you jittering this whole damn flight I might as well do it in style. ”

Just the impression I wanted to give.

“Well excuse me for not being as used to putting my ass high in the air unassisted as you are,” I mutter spitefully and -SLAM. The beer comes down hard on the airplane table.

His face is caught between surprise and anger, his slitted eyes glittering at me dangerously. “What did you just say?” He ask darkly, his voice low and charged with emotion. That’s it. Piss off the person renowned for being ‘out of control ’ who you’ll be sitting next to on a twenty something hour flight. Fantastic idea. 

"I.. uh. .. " Crap. The nerves metamorphose into palpitations indicative of the fear I feel. He’s killed people. I know he’s killed people. Now he knows I know what he was-is… 

Then, the electric feeling of being close to strangled for knowing too much vanishes as he grunts, and slides further down his seat, looking into the empty beer can contemplatively. The breath I have been holding bleeds through my gritted teeth until I am forced to remind myself that oxygen is necessary for life.”You’re not going to try and shut me up?”

Apparently some part of me does have a death wish. 

"Nah. " He mutters, with a shrug. "We’re thirty five thousand feet in the damn air. What’re you gonna do up here?" Thirty five thousand is a big number. That’s a lot of air between us-me, and the ground.

Tin can.

Turbulence rumbles through the cabin as an ever-present reminder of just how unstable I know the flight, and its inhabitants, to be.

"Besides. " He jams his finger into the call button, and I hear the clip-clop of the air hostess’s heels coming up the walkway. "It’s hasn’t been all over the news. So you’re not interested in tellin’. Beer please, " The woman with her plastic, cherry red lipstick cracks a smile, and hands another cold can to him. "Question is, kid. What you gonna do with that information?"


End file.
